


Never Mind All That

by ParticularNorth



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Older Dipper Pines, Older Pacifica Northwest, Post-Canon, Romance, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26929009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParticularNorth/pseuds/ParticularNorth
Summary: “It was easier before, you know.”“What was?”“Never minding all that.”---Six years on from Weirdmageddon, Dipper and Pacifica reflect on how the events of that fateful summer changed their lives forever.
Relationships: Pacifica Northwest/Dipper Pines
Comments: 19
Kudos: 119





	Never Mind All That

There were some things that Dipper Pines looked forward to every summer.

For the past six years, there had been nothing he had anticipated more than packing up his sticker-smothered suitcase each June and taking the long road north to Gravity Falls – just him, his sister, and her pet pig, crammed into Mabel’s beat-up station wagon, cheesy pop songs on the stereo and a carrier bag full of candy nestled at his feet. He looked forward each year to that first morning in their attic room, when he could wake up as though he were twelve again, slip on a shirt and some jeans, and chase through the woods around the sleepy Oregon town, journal in hand – sometimes hunting for mysteries, sometimes for something less tangible, but no less magical. He longed for days spent tinkering in Great Uncle Ford’s subterranean laboratory, for evenings spent curled up around Grunkle Stan’s battered old television, watching reruns on the local channels.

For nights spent on the roof of the Mystery Shack, watching for sprites with Pacifica Northwest.

That last one had been a surprise, even to him. And yet there they were, the two of them, camped out on the flat dormer jutting from the Mystery Shack’s wood-tiled roof, a cooler of Pitt Cola between them and the shape of the galaxy stretched out between the floating cliffs of Gravity Falls.

(A straight line this time, splitting the sky in two. Six years on and Dipper still had to take a few moments not to see an X-shaped rift above the town.)

“There! Between the trees! What’s that?”

Dipper’s head snapped upwards from his journal, a mess of brown curls falling around his eyes. He brushed them back, peering towards the spot where Pacifica's hand was pointing. A faint speck of yellow light flared brightly in the darkness before burning out.

“Just fireflies, I think. Sorry, Pacifica.”

“Ugh.” She rocked back on the second lounger that had – over time – become a permanent fixture on the roof of the Mystery Shack. “This is dumb. Why can’t your spirits be more obvious?”

“ _Sprites._ Though the etymology’s the same, so points for trying.” He ignored the eyes rolled at him. “And this is as obvious as we’re gonna get. They’re a European creature, and rare even there. But turns out we have a colony here, because-”

“Because this town’s _weird_ ,” she finished, pouting. “Well, it’s still dumb. We’ve been out here for hours and there’s no sign of anything freaky.”

“Well, I hope you’re comfy, because I don’t intend to leave until I see one.”

“And you need me here because…?”

“It’s Friday night, and you don’t have a shift tomorrow. What else are you going to be doing?”

She didn’t have an answer to that, clearly, since she gave a grudging humph, and grabbed a can of Pitt from the cooler. The ice rattled as the can came free, and without a word Pacifica held it out to Dipper. He shook his head.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“No, dummy. Open. I have nails.” She fluttered her fingers. A set of perfectly-manicured false nails were affixed to them, glittering purple in the light of dusk.

“Oh – uh, right. Sorry.” He cracked it open – the can fizzed with a nectarine hiss – and handed it back. A silence washed over them both as Pacifica drank, turning her gaze back to the forest in search of the tell-tale glow of the mysterious.

When he was sure she wasn’t looking, Dipper let his eyes wander over towards her.  
  


To have said the years had been kind would have been an understatement. At eighteen, Dipper had grown _up_ , in the most literal sense of the word – childhood puppy fat giving way to a lankiness which had done little more than give him a whole new set of ways to be awkward. Pacifica, though –

He wasn’t sure how someone could look so much themselves and yet so utterly different. Outwardly she hadn’t changed much – she’d still dressed herself up to hang out on a rooftop, after all; who _did_ that? – but while her designer outfits remained largely the same, she was up there with him regardless, scanning the treeline for a glimpse of magic in the air. Her eyes were squinted slightly in focus, their lids dusted with that familiar lilac eyeshadow, and her brow furrowed – just a touch, just enough to draw a hair-thin line across her forehead.

Dipper studied it for a moment, suppressing a smile. Twelve-year-old Pacifica would’ve traded almost anything to remove a wrinkle like that. She almost _had_ , in fact – and tried to order a gold-toothed face-demon around in the process. It was laughable, really – the spoiled rich kid who’d barely encountered the supernatural before that summer, ordering a denizen of the Crawlspace around like one of the family butlers. She’d been so unprepared to face him.

And yet she had anyway, burning the trickster’s face with flammable beauty pills so the three of them could make their escape. She’d stood back-to-back with Mabel, clearing a path through minuscule animate golf-balls; she’d stood up to the lumberjack ghost; she’d opened the manor gates and broken the Northwest curse. More than that, though, she’d faced unafraid the greatest demon Gravity Falls could throw at her – a buffoonish man with a tiny bell, cowering beneath a trapdoor – and the years and years he’d spent wearing her down.

(The bile rose in his throat at the thought of it. No wonder she’d not been afraid to breach Bill’s castle with them all. No dream demon could compare to _that_ nightmare.)

So, in some ways, she had changed. In others, she’d remained the same as ever, maybe just letting a bit more of her true self _show_. He’d said as much to her once, when the two of them were bundled up in a burlap sack awaiting certain defacement.

It had earned him a hug – the second in one summer.

Mabel still hadn’t stopped teasing them about it.

And yes, there was a wrinkle on her forehead. There were ones at the corners of her eyes, too – imperceptible crow’s feet – and while she probably cursed them in the mirror every morning, Dipper’s heart soared to see them. They bespoke laughter – genuine laughter, the kind that shook the body and brought tears to the eyes. They were signs that she’d not just grown older, but happier, too. Freer. Studying her profile, it was like seeing two images overlaid – a photograph and its negative: the same image, but only one in true colour.  
  


“Take a picture, Pines, it’ll last longer.”

Feeling the heat rise to his cheeks, Dipper blinked out of his ruminations. He hadn’t even noticed Pacifica turn towards him, a quizzical frown across her brow. “What? I wasn’t – uh –”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Uh, Earth to Dipper? You were totally staring.” Her eyes flashed, and some survival instinct immediately slipped a hand to the back of his neck. Her gaze didn’t waver; blue eyes pinned him to the spot, searching him for answers. “Gonna let me into that nerd head of yours?”

“Sorry,” he gabbled. “I was just thinking. About, uh, negatives.”

“Negatives?”

“Y’know, uh – photo negatives. And, like, how weird it is. That they’re reversed.”

“Uh-huh,” she replied, a corner of her mouth creeping into a languid smile. “Want to come up with something more believable, or shall I just assume you were being a dork?”

This was firmer footing. They’d sparred this way before – when preparing to catch a ghost, and every summer after that. The rapid thudding of his heart slowed a little, and he couldn’t help a smirk when he responded. “You’d do that anyway.”

“Well, you _are_ a dork.”

The tension hung in the air for a moment – a beat too long – before Pacifica cracked, a tiny, snorting laugh that gave way to a fit of laughter, the two of them unable to keep it up. At the same time thankful and disappointed for the reprieve, Dipper reached for a Pitt Cola, pulled the tab, and took a swig.

“I was just thinking,” he began, after a moment. Pacifica looked over, but it was a false start; the sentence died in his throat, and _dammit it should not be this hard to talk_.

“ _There’s_ a change.”

“Ha ha.” With a deep breath, he continued. “It’s just – it’s weird sometimes, y’know? That you’re out here with me. Up here. Watching for sprites.” A querying look flitted across her brow. “I mean, you were such a princess when we first met.”

“Uh, Dipper? I’m _still_ a princess,” she said, tapping her fingers to her chest. She was smiling, though, and Dipper sparred back, doffing his cap in a deep, theatrical bow.

“A thousand pardons, _your majesty_.”

Appeased, Pacifica nodded. “Continue.”

“I don’t know. It just never seemed like your thing.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve explored the woods with you before.”

Dipper rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, but Mabel was with us then. I kind of figured you were just coming along to hang out with her.”

Pacifica rolled her eyes. “Excuse you. I spent most of that first year looking for _ghosts_ , you know.”

He paused. “You’re joking.”

“Am not.” She gazed out over the forestscape. The shadows of the trees surrounding the Shack were tall and dark, enveloping, and Dipper found himself wondering why he’d never noticed how small the clearing seemed from up here. “Our new house was still pretty big, and I was thirteen. When the pipes used to knock, I’d be scared that it was the lumberjack coming back or whatever. So if I heard something go bump in the night, I had to go and investigate it.” Taking a slow, steadying breath, she continued. “I used to keep a torch and a silver hand-mirror by my bed, and I’d go room by room until I was sure nothing was there. Even then, I’d sleep under the covers when I got back.”

“Everyone knows monsters can’t get you if you’re under a sheet.”

She shot him a look, scorn under purple eyeshadow. “I was thirteen, Pines.”

Dipper gave a dry chuckle. “Sorry. Honestly, Pacifica, that sounds pretty brave of you. And for what it’s worth, you probably stood a good chance if there had been one. You _are_ the only other person I know who’s ever actually defeated a ghost.”

Without looking over, she snapped her fingers into a pistol shape. “Category ten.”

They laughed again for a moment, filling the clearing with laughter that fell into comfortable silence. From far below them came fragments of conversation as Stan flicked idly through TV channels, Mabel playing happily with Waddles at his feet, her eighteen-year-old self no less joyful than she had been at twelve. Somewhere in the house, Melody and Soos were likely putting the first of the next generation to sleep, beneath a mobile Ford had rigged up from old spaceship parts – some things really had changed in the last few years.

Beyond, in the depths of the forest, firefly-lights flared and burned in gentle, unknowable rhythms.  
  


“It was easier before, you know.”

“What was?”

“Never minding all that.” Manicured fingers gestured idly at ‘that’. “We’re not meant to talk about any of this stuff with outsiders. Got to pretend that we’re just a normal town. But we’re not, are we?”

“Gravity Falls? What was your first clue?”

“Well, that’s just it. I didn’t _have_ a clue when I was growing up. It was just the same old boring backwater it ever was. Sure, there were weird things now and again, but – look, beavers can apparently vote, and our mayor is chosen by an eagle. It’s low-level weird. Ignorable.”

The back of Dipper’s neck prickled as he thought about his first reaction to the sleepy Oregon town. As much as he hated to admit it, before finding the journal in the hollowed-out tree, he’d had much the same thought.

“But then you guys came. And suddenly there were living golf balls at the Putt Hutt and a ghost just… haunting the mansion. After Weirdmageddon – I don’t know how we were ever expected to pretend that was normal.”

Pacifica paused, and avoided his eye. “And… if I’m honest… I don’t think I’d want to pretend it _was_ normal.”

“What do you mean?”

She stood up, and stretched her arms out to the clearing. “Because,” she said, her voice a touch louder, stronger, “That stupid town law means that we’re meant to ‘never mind all that’, but ‘all that’ is all _this_! Sitting out under the stars with my best friend, looking out for dumb _sprites_ at stupid o’clock at night, because the world is much bigger and fuller than it ever seemed from Northwest Manor.” She spun around, her light jacket trailing, before flopping down next to Dipper on his own lounger. “Because if it wasn’t for ‘all that’, I don’t think I’d be who I am today.”

She cocked her head to look at him. Platinum hair framed her face, falling in a rush over her shoulders. Her eyes were bright, even in the twilight, and sitting this close to him, Dipper could taste the faint smell of champagne on the air. It was all he could do to fight the effervescent feeling in his chest.

“It was easier,” he agreed. His voice was slower than he’d intended, picking his way carefully around the words. “But you’re right. If it hadn’t been for ‘all that’ - if I hadn’t found the journal - we wouldn’t be here now. I’d probably be back in California, and you’d be cooped up in that manor. Ford wouldn’t be with us, and Stan would still be that kooky old guy running the Mystery Shack.”

“McGucket wouldn’t have his memories back.”

“And Mabel would probably still be kind of self-centred.” He laughed at the look Pacifica shot him. “She’s my sister, I can say that. But she’s come a long way since then. And you have, too. You broke the chain. You showed you were smarter and more confident than your dad ever gave you credit for.” He chuckled. “Hey, you even touched the hillbilly. Weirdmageddon _was_ kind of a nightmare, but I’d say we came out better people for it.” He shot her a half-smile. “I know you did.”

Blue eyes flared wider for a second, before Pacifica rocked sideways, bumping into his bicep. At the edge of his hearing, Dipper could’ve sworn he’d heard her murmur ‘dork’.

Another silence fell over the clearing as they sat together – the ghost-hunter and the heiress – sipping their cola and watching the fireflies dance between the trees, Dipper’s eyes occasionally glancing towards her. She seemed lighter for her admission – like the weight had been taken quite literally off her shoulders. He smiled. It was almost a shame to ruin the moment.

… almost.  
  


“Hey, Pacifica?”

“Hm?”

“Did you say _best friend_?”

“Oh, no.”

He gasped in mock surprise, failing utterly to mask the grin creeping across his face, while Pacifica’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “You _did! Pacifica!_ ”

“Ugh. Can I pay you to forget I said that?”

“Nope.”

She groaned, sinking her fingers deep into her hair. Dipper doubled down.

“You know that means you have to come monster-hunting with me now,” he smirked.

“I’ve been-”

“Not properly. You’ve done gnomes and eye-bats. That’s like, category one.”

“Isn’t Mabel your usual tag-along?”

“Not when she’s with Candy and Grenda. Or when she has an art project to finish. Design school keeps her busy, you know.”

Pacifica raised her head, and peeked through her splayed fingers. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Dipper’s face dropped into an earnest deadpan. He placed a hand to his chest. “I have never been more serious about anything in my life.”

She sighed. “Well then,” she said, measuring him steadily. Behind her eyes he could see the spark of a decision; in her voice he could hear the Northwest confidence return. “If I’m going to be dragged on one of your _dork hunts_ , I’ll at least need to look the part.”

He laughed, and she struck; in one deft move she’d swiped the trucker cap from his head and set it on her own.

_Dammit, it suited her._

“Well? How do I look?”

 _Incredible_ , he thought.

_Wait- no._

_Nononono-_

But there was no denying the bubbling in his chest again, the way that his heart beat just a little bit harder when looking at her. The way it did every time they hung out – because she was his best friend too; he’d reconciled himself with that fact long ago. This was new, though, because best friends’ eyes weren’t so transfixing: narrower, now, appraising, but bright; crystalline. Because their hair wasn’t so brilliantly sleek in the moonlight, they didn’t give you that rush when they brushed against you, when they leaned towards you, like she was learning towards him now -

And there was that floral scent again, catching the air like a half-remembered memory.

“It looks that good, huh?” A tiny spark of a smile played at the corner of her mouth, and Dipper felt his own run painfully dry.

“Heh, I didn’t say- I mean- ”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not the first guy to check me out, Dipper.”

“Wha-”

“I’m pretty, I get it. But,” she silenced him with a finger to his lips. “You might be the first not to _stop_ at the make-up.”

And in an instant, he felt the brush of soft, plush lips against his own, and the rich smell of champagne fill the air.

There’d be Conversations after this. Reassurances that _yes, this is happening_ , and ‘hows’, and ‘whys’, and ‘how longs’. They’d have to go downstairs eventually, and Mabel would _know_ , and Stan, no doubt, would tease him for weeks. Then there was college to think about, and the logistics of long-distance visits to figure out, and Pacifica’s parents would _never_ approve, and he’d have to learn how to use fancy cutlery, and probably have to learn how to actually comb his hair -

 _Ah, to heck with it all_ , Dipper thought. He slipped a hand to the nape of Pacifica’s neck, and kissed back, letting reason give way just for once. There was time to figure it out later. Right now, he was here with his best friend. Maybe something more.

He felt her smile.

_Never mind all that._

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I honestly never thought I’d ever write any fanfiction, let alone romantic fluff, let alone post any of it on the internet – and yet, here we are.
> 
> In truth, it was a good excuse to exercise some woefully-underused writing muscles – and the sharp dynamic between Dipper/Pacifica was far too much fun to write!


End file.
